


We're All Mad Here

by a_t_rain



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/M, First Dates, Meet the Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3490499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dono Vorrutyer flirts very briefly with convention, and breaks up with convention to flirt with Olivia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're All Mad Here

**Author's Note:**

> Part three of what will probably be a four-part series of one-shots about the Vorrutyer cousins during _A Civil Campaign_. The first two are [Fidele](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3085118) and [And Cry 'Content' to That Which Grieves My Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3176824), but you don't really need to have read the others.
> 
> There is a lot of very well-written Dono / Olivia fic out there that explores Serious Issues of Gender Identity and Sexuality. This ... turned out not to be one of those stories. This is the story about why Olivia is wandering around Vorrutyer House with three pieces of parchment and a smudge of dust on her nose when Miles calls, and about who came up with the idea of slipping Countess Vormuir a packet of Betan aphrodisiacs and why. Hey, there had to be one of those _too..._
> 
> Hat tip to Umberto Eco for the labyrinth, to Nineveh_uk for noting the absence of one particular class of puns in the books, and various online spam ads for ... well, you'll see.

There were certain simple rules Lord Dono Vorrutyer had always intended to follow in his new life as a man: Do Not Leave The Toilet Seat Up, Do Not Make Passes At Girls In Lift-Tubes Or Other Enclosed Spaces, and, above all, Do Not Develop A Grand Passion For Someone Without Informing Her Of The Fact. He’d often wondered – as recently as _five days ago_ , at Miles Vorkosigan’s surprisingly entertaining dinner party – why men seemed to find the _last_ one so difficult to manage. He was beginning to be enlightened.

It had all come upon him with a great rush of physical energy, and it had taken him the better part of the next day to place what it was: the shivery-sweaty feeling, the jitters, the desire to pace and run and climb hills and stay up all night. He was going through _puberty_ , as the Betan doctors had warned, and he was, for the first time in twenty years, in the grip of a very adolescent _crush_.

Back then, too, it had sometimes been on a girl. Donna had never acted upon it. Not back then.

To make matters complicated, it was one of the Koudelka girls. If there was such a class as _high prole_ , the Koudelkas were definitely it, and it was a decidedly conservative class where sexual mores were concerned, if borderline radical in some other ways. And to complicate matters still further, it was Olivia, the _quiet_ one.

Martya, he thought, would probably have liked to go out dancing. Olivia ... Olivia liked books, it seemed. And history. Dono could supply that sort of thing, but it meant an invitation to Vorrutyer House, which was ... a bit more intimate, and quite a _lot_ more laden with baggage. It was an immutable truth that being a Vorrutyer _meant_ baggage. You came with a reputation. It was a reputation that Lady Donna had often deserved, and had sometimes actively courted, but it was going to complicate matters now.

He wrestled, for several days, with the puzzle of how to invite his new friend to lunch at Vorrutyer House, and then shook his head in bewilderment at how difficult he was finding the problem. _Like I’ve never made the first move before?_

But that had been different. There were ... rules for breaking rules, and Lady Donna had known how to break rules with style and flair. Lord Dono was trying to _follow_ the rules.

Technically speaking, if you were following the rules, you didn’t invite young ladies to your home without inviting one of your older female relatives along; but the Vorrutyers were a short-lived clan, and Dono had no older female relatives left unless you counted his ex-aunt, who didn’t actually _talk_ to people any more. ( _Byerly_ had offered to stand in for his mother, and had then challenged Dono to explain exactly _why_ he didn’t qualify as a suitable chaperone. Dono attempted to explain that proper chaperones a) weren’t male; b) didn’t have _shadier_ reputations than the men they were supposed to be protecting the young ladies from; c) didn’t say things like “Well, if she doesn’t go for you, can I have second dibs, because I’ve always been partial to blondes?”; and d) when treated to a full, Betan-gender-theory-inflected lecture on the inappropriateness of objectifying women, didn’t reply, “All right, I’ll just objectify _Ivan_ then, since you’re definitely through with _him_.” Byerly dismissed the first point as sexist and the last as irrelevant, acknowledged that the second and third had some merit, and then cleared off, which was – _thank God_ – obviously what he had been intending to do all along.)

So Dono invited his attorney to lunch, instead. She was older, and female: two out of three wasn’t bad.

It still seemed sort of wrong (as well as _much too obvious_ ) to invite Olivia by herself, so he invited Martya too, and also René and Tatya Vorbretten. That seemed like enough people for camouflage, as long as he didn’t make the Miles Mistake and tell everyone _except_ Olivia about his intentions. Maybe a little too much camouflage: he wondered what would happen if they all assumed he was in love with his attorney, or that he wanted to persuade the Vorbrettens to invest in bug butter.

He toyed, very briefly, with the idea of hiring Olivia as a self-defense instructor, because he honestly needed one, and it seemed that Olivia was good at that sort of thing – but that would have been another Miles Mistake, wouldn’t it? Really, it was good that Miles _existed_ , and could save other men from many an error by virtue of being a spectacularly bad example.

* * *

Olivia accepted the invitation, and declined on Martya’s behalf. It seemed that Martya was really doing something with Dr. Borgos, although their parents should be kept under the impression that both girls were having lunch at Vorrutyer House, should they happen to call and inquire. Dono found this an encouraging sign, even though it was no doubt Martya and not Olivia who had hatched the plan. He liked girls who didn’t object to a bit of subterfuge, and he’d been worrying that Olivia might be a little too _good_.

Tatya accepted, too, and declined on René’s behalf, as he was too busy trying to lobby the other Counts. Dono wondered if it was really usual for attractive young Countesses, even nowadays, to accept invitations to lunch at a single man’s house without their husbands. ( _Donna_ would undoubtedly have done so, had she stayed married to Lord Vorholland long enough to become a Countess, but Donna would have known exactly what she was doing.) Had Dono, without intending to, become _safe?_ _Donna_ had surely never been the sort of person anybody regarded as safe, but maybe that was a marker of how much more _outrageously_ men got to behave before society classified them as beyond the pale.

* * *

On the morning of the luncheon party, Dono discovered that one of the other inconveniences of second-puberty was that he was getting _pimples_. He contemplated himself in the mirror for a few unsatisfactory minutes, and then went rooting through one of the upstairs closets for a discarded purse that had been his own, in that other life. There was still a compact in it with a bit of concealer. He hesitated only a moment before dabbing it on.

Screw it, he was willing to bet he wouldn’t be the _first_ Count Vorrutyer who occasionally wore cosmetics.

* * *

Dono introduced Natalia, his attorney, to his other guests. Max introduced himself to everybody by jumping on them and licking them until they begged for mercy. Good old Max. You never lacked for conversation when he was around; and fortunately, Olivia didn’t seem shy at all where dogs were concerned.

Natalia had been to the house before, but Dono filled in the time before lunch giving Olivia and Tatya the tour, with heavy emphasis on the library – which had been remodeled by his great-uncle the mad architect, and was quite literally a labyrinth.

“It’s funny, but despite all the lurid rumors you’ve probably heard about us, nobody ever tumbles to the fact that the real family perversion is _bibliophilia_.”

Olivia looked around and smiled. It was an inward, slightly knowing smile; the sort that wasn’t really meant for anyone but Olivia herself, but Dono found it delightful anyway. “So I see. But – why is there an entire shelf of the Marquis de Sade?”

“Sometimes,” Dono admitted, “there are co-morbidities.”

There wasn’t, he decided, going to be any real hope of pretending the Vorrutyers were a family of harmless eccentrics (though many of them, most recently his late brother Pierre, had been) or that they’d been tragically misunderstood (though nearly all of them had been, at one time or another). The generations of violence and insanity and melancholia were real, and this very room proclaimed much too clearly _we’re all mad here_. Down the rabbit-hole, through the looking-glass. It had been _such_ a mistake bringing this nice blonde prole girl from a nice, normal family into Wonderland.

“And what do _you_ like to read?” asked Olivia.

“These days, it’s more like _what do I need to read?_ A lot of history. A lot of political philosophy. Pretty much all of _Shakespeare_. At good boys’ schools they _memorize_ whole plays, just in case they go into politics and need to trot out the right quotation for the right occasion. Nobody ever _teaches_ girls these things. I’ve had a lot of catching up to do.”

“They taught _us_ those things,” said Tatya, showing off a charming set of dimples. “Olivia, do you remember that scene we did at school? _The honorable lady of the house, which is she?_ ”

“ _Speak to me, I shall answer for her_ ,” said Olivia, with the same practiced ease Dono had often heard from male orators. “ _Your will?_ ”

“ _Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty – I pray you, tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her..._ ”

“You went to a different sort of school, I expect,” said Dono. (Actually, he knew they had to have gone to a different sort of school, because Olivia wouldn’t have been _admitted_ to the very-select-and-utterly-useless girls’ school Lady Donna had attended. Too few generations away from the grocer’s shop.)

“It was a very modern one,” said Olivia. And then she flushed and got quiet again, in an _oops, I didn’t mean to imply that you’re old_ sort of way.

“Right, well, I didn’t have the advantage of that sort of education,” said Dono, talking hectically to fill in what had been an awkward pause. “So I’ve had to read up on all sorts of things I hadn’t even realized I was supposed to have opinions about, like Komarran terraforming. I _definitely_ didn’t go into this for the Komarrans. To the extent that I’d ever thought about them at all, it was mostly to hope that they didn’t decide to blow things up.”

_Oh crap, one of Olivia’s sisters is engaged to a Komarran. One who happens to be related to the sort of people who blow things up. Cue the awkward pauses, again._

“I’d rather felt that way myself,” said Tatya, “but, you know, this soletta repair project sounded perfectly reasonable when Miles explained it.”

“Things _always_ sound reasonable when Miles explains them,” said Olivia, in a voice that suggested long experience, “and you only realize afterward that you’ve agreed to something that makes _no sense whatsoever_.”

* * *

Lunch was excellent; Armsman Theophilos was quite a good cook in the Greek style, and he’d produced baked fish with lemon and an assortment of honey-soaked pastries.

In an astonishing stroke of luck, Tatya seemed to have decided that Dono had invited them all to lunch so that _she_ could consult with Natalia about her husband’s legal circumstances, and proceeded to closet herself with the attorney in the study, leaving Dono and Olivia alone to finish off the bottle of white wine they’d opened. Thank God for wine. Was he actually running short of things to talk about?

He thought about proposing that they go outside and play with Max, but that was the sort of thing you suggested to visitors who were about _six_. Olivia clearly hadn’t been six since Dono was ... all right, right around the age Olivia was _now_. Would making conversation have been easier with someone closer to his own age? But Barrayaran women who were of a more suitable age had generally been married for years already.

“Your family’s house is really...” said Olivia, and stopped. ( _Beautiful_ very clearly wasn’t the right word for a place that had _murder-holes_.) “Interesting,” she said at last.

 _I can do interesting_, thought Dono with some satisfaction. The Vorrutyers, whatever else they were or weren’t, almost never failed to be interesting. Except, apparently, when they were being _tongue-tied_.

“I always used to like exploring the attics at Vorkosigan House when I was a kid. _So_ many exciting things to discover.”

“ _I’ve_ got an attic,” said Dono, and thought at once that this sounded a bit pathetic, rather like _I was adored once, too..._

* * *

The cleaning service had not yet tackled the third floor of Vorrutyer House. The rooms were still thick with dust and filled with the traces of Pierre’s life, a life that had been solitary, depressive, defeated, but essentially _kind_. It was because he had little doubt of Olivia’s own kindness that Dono didn’t mind bringing her here.

She must be registering the untidiness of the rooms they walked past on the way to the attic stairs, and making something of the possessions left behind by their late occupant, but her look of quiet thoughtfulness gave little away. Dono wanted to say something like _don’t worry, I’m not going to end like that, I’m one of the vivid sociable ones_ , but thought better of it. Anyway, the vivid, sociable Vorrutyers often flamed out _spectacularly_ (one of his aunts had _literally_ done so, with a plasma arc). Dono didn’t really have anything to offer as a guarantee, except his own inward sense of his sanity and stability, and – well, there were people who would cite his newly-male body as conclusive evidence of _instability_ , weren’t there?

The attic, at any rate, had some less-obviously-tragic stories to tell, and prowling through it was a pleasant way to occupy an afternoon, even if it wasn’t quite ... normal first-date material. When and how, Dono wondered, did one actually declare one’s intentions? It would, surely, be better to do it before Olivia decided to treat him as a slightly unusual _female_ friend.

He cleared his throat. “Finding anything interesting?”

“Just a lot of old parchment. _Drawings_ , I think. ... _Oh!_ It’s the plans for your library.”

“Is it really?” Dono threaded his way around several chests, stumbled over a box or two, and took a look. “So it is. Who knew my great-uncle-and-namesake the mad architect left his plans in here?” Privately, he felt relieved; his great-uncle-and-namesake had definitely been one of the _harmless eccentric_ class of Vorrutyers. Other, darker, possibilities had flashed through his head when Olivia had said _drawings_.

“What’s this one? ... You couldn’t possibly _build_ this, could you? Those _catwalks_ – they don’t go anywhere – and the arches on top of arches, without any visible support. They didn’t have antigrav back then.”

“No. I think he was just ... fantasizing.”

Olivia held the parchment at arm’s length, letting a sunbeam thick with dust motes fall on it. “It’s ... sort of beautiful, I think. In a weird, nightmarish way.”

Olivia was probably the only person who had ever found the mad architect’s visions _beautiful_. Of all of the ways this afternoon could have gone awry, Dono had never envisioned the possibility that she might fall in love with the _wrong_ Dono Vorrutyer. And yet, looking again at the sketch, he decided that Olivia was right. It was oddly beautiful, in its way.

Olivia inspected the third parchment. “That one actually got built,” said Dono, “it’s one of his towers. I’ll show you sometime if you ever visit the District.” His second cousins charged an arm and a leg in admission, but since the towers were their sole inheritance, he couldn’t really blame them.

“Is it used for anything?”

“No, it’s ... decorative. Or at any rate, my great-uncle-and-namesake _meant_ it to be decorative. Most people think the results are better described as _indecorous_.”

“I’m not sure that’s really fair to him,” Olivia mused. “If nothing else, it’s got to be a remarkable piece of engineering. Look at the stairs, why don’t they fall down?”

“Oh, he was _competent_. No one’s ever doubted that.” He was also, it suddenly occurred to Dono, almost the only person associated with Emperor Yuri who had died peacefully in his bed. _We’re all mad here, but maybe some of us are crazy like foxes_.

While Dono was still trying to think of some way to steer the conversation toward some topic other than architecture, he got a wristcom call from Natalia, who wanted to know where on the planet he was and why he hadn’t answered when she and Tatya had tried to call him into the study. They had, it seemed, gotten on to the topic of large-scale political strategizing.

He suggested to Olivia that she continue exploring the house in his absence, and she bounced off with the parchments in hand.

* * *

After another hour or so, Olivia knocked at the study door and said, “Hey, Dono, guess who’s on the com?” and Dono left the room with relief. Tatya had, at several moments, tried to suggest that she had something confidential to discuss with Natalia and that Dono’s presence might not be absolutely necessary, but the attorney seemed to be oblivious to hints.

The call turned out to be from Miles, who wanted to invite both Dono _and_ René to a strategy meeting at Vorkosigan House, an invitation that Dono accepted with alacrity. No need to mention that he’d already been closeted with Tatya talking about some of the same topics. Miles liked it when things were _his_ idea.

At the end of this _very_ satisfying conversation, Dono went looking for Olivia. She wasn’t in the attic; he tried the library, and heard some scuffling noises from behind the bookshelves. A moment later, Olivia emerged from one of the secret crawl-spaces, sneezed, and examined a package in her hand. “What’s this?”

Oh, _crap_. It was the packet of aphrodisiacs Dono had purchased on Beta, in a sudden fit of alarm that he might not be able to _perform_ with a woman. (It was becoming increasingly clear that these fears had been groundless. Donna and By had once had an entertaining conversation about whether everyone in the family was bisexual to some degree, and whether there ought to be different words for the different degrees of it. The surgery, or perhaps the consequent surge of male hormones, had apparently flipped Dono’s personal switch from _heteroflexible_ to full-on _ambisextrous_.)

“Oh. Um. Something that I picked up on Beta.”

“I can see why ...” said Olivia, with another one of those quiet but slyly knowing smiles.

_Shitshitshit. How do I explain that it’s not what it looks like, that I really am attracted to women? Also, that I am totally not obsessed with having sex with you, certainly not enough to have been planning our wedding night before we had our first date? One of these things, by the way, is a lie._

“... it’s _hilarious_ when off-worlders try to write things in the Barrayaran alphabet, isn’t it?”

Dono hadn’t even read the packaging: it had been a furtive purchase, the kind of thing you paid for hastily without meeting the clerk’s eyes, shoved into the bottom of your luggage, and covered as quickly as possible with your clothing. And then, after he got back to Barrayar, he had hidden it in the library, because nobody who hadn't been a child in Vorrutyer House would know that the architect had endowed his creation with so many useful hiding places. And then he’d forgotten about it. It had never _occurred_ to him to envision a first-date scenario that involved the girl finding a detailed plan of the labyrinth and deciding to _prowl around_ in those holes and corners.

He looked carefully at the packet for the first time. The label was, indeed, in an attempt at the Barrayaran alphabet, produced by someone whose native language was clearly _none_ of the planet’s four official languages. It proclaimed, in vivid, electric-blue lettering that was probably the Betans’ notion of a masculine color, _The Only Method to Vulcanize Your Intimate Life! 0% Night Malfunctoon Risk!_

He snorted. “I found it in the duty-free shop at the shuttleport. Obviously an attempt to capitalize on the lucrative market of Barrayarans doing some last-minute off-world shopping, without actually _paying_ anyone competent to do the packaging.”

_Do you desire an extra fire in your love life? Are you ready for your hottest night of delight? Awake your inner rearing stallion!_

“Well,” said Olivia, “at least they ... sort of tried to research our culture? Enough to know we’re supposed to like horses?”

That sly little smile was meant for sharing, this time; Dono’s eyes met hers, and they both laughed out loud.

Dono tried reading the slogans on the side panel aloud, in an exaggerated parody of a Barrayaran Russian accent: _She will be surprised by your potency: absorb vigor for longer drilling! You can have happiness several times on end!_

They were both laughing almost too hard to talk after that, wrestling for the box. Olivia won. She was taller than Dono, and surprisingly strong.

_WARNING you are about to experience a sexual sensory overload!_ she read aloud. _Demonstrate your love greatness to her! Feel the bottomless pleasance!_

_Oh no_ , thought Dono, in the midst of a fit of laughter. Since when was it _manly_ to be giggling helplessly over the embarrassing vulnerabilities of the male body, and the consequent insecurities of the male psyche? Were men even supposed to find that sort of thing funny? Or was it one of those things, like getting kicked in the balls, that they couldn’t think about without an inward _wince?_ At any rate, it seemed to be a _girlfriendish_ moment, but for the wrong definition of _girlfriend_.

And then Olivia kissed him: an open-mouthed kiss, clearly the _other_ kind of _girlfriendish_.

He kissed back, more slowly. “How was that?” he couldn't resist asking. “Bottomless pleasance?”

“Oh yes. How’s your inner rearing stallion, is it awake yet?”

He grinned. “I think so.”

“I was _wondering_ when you were going to make a move. After Tatya had gone to all the trouble of hustling René off to call on Count Vorpinski, and then getting Natalia out of the way.”

Right, so he’d squandered that opportunity on _architecture_. “I hadn’t realized the two of you were doing it on _purpose_.” 

“Really,” said Olivia, her eyes dancing, “have you forgotten _that quickly?_ ”

* * *

Late in the evening, Byerly let himself into Vorrutyer House and opened a bottle of wine without waiting for an invitation. He was wearing what Dono had come to think of as his _don’t come too close, I’ve been talking to Richars and I don’t want to infect you_ expression.

“How was dinner with Richars?” Dono asked.

“You have no idea how many _tiresome_ jokes you can make by taking the ‘o’ out of the word ‘Count’.”

“So make some better ones.”

Byerly acknowledged this instruction with a brief nod which conveyed a very faint suggestion of surprise. _My word, By, did you really think you needed my permission?_ And then it occurred to Dono that the permission might not actually be his to give any more. Right, so there were particular kinds of jokes you might not be allowed to make if you were _male_ , not without being a complete cad, anyway. Dono added this to his ever-lengthening list of things he was going to have to remember.

“On a more pleasant note, how was lunch with the fair-but-exceedingly-shy Olivia? Has she got any _conversation_ when you get her one on one?”

“Yes.”

“What kinds of things did you talk about?”

“Architecture,” said Dono, taking possession of a glass of wine before By could claim all of it, “and Shakespeare, and modern education, and ... and the importance of the horse to Barrayaran culture.”

“That sounds _alarmingly_ serious and intellectual.”

“She’s very smart.”

“Look,” said By, sounding rather alarmingly serious himself, “I know your first consideration is to find someone who will make an appropriate Countess – but for all that, do try to make it someone who isn’t going to bore you to tears.”

“She doesn’t. And actually, my first consideration is to _become_ someone who will make an appropriate _Count_.”

“I am not even going to _speculate_ about what Richars would make of the phrase ‘appropriate Count’.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“You’re being remarkably _monosyllabic_ tonight. Is that a good sign or a bad sign, I wonder? ... Ooh, I see you’ve got lipstick on your _neck and ears_. I guess that answers _that_ question.”

“By, it’s possible that I may have described you at some time or other as _the closest thing to a younger brother I’ve got_ ...”

“You did. In a rare moment of unguarded sentimentality. You were drunk at the time.”

“... but it doesn’t mean you have to act the part all the time, particularly when you’re _thirty-five_. Why do you always _remember_ the things people say when they’re drunk, anyway?”

He shrugged. “It’s useful sometimes. Do tell, how was your first kiss with a girl? It _was_ your first, wasn’t it?”

“Nice. _Softer_. I didn’t know it would be like that.”

“I remember that feeling. It’s ... surprising how different it is from kissing men, isn’t it?”

“Who was yours?” asked Dono, hoping this would distract him from pumping for details.

“Sonya Vormerrick.”

“Sonya Vormerrick kissed _you?_ On _purpose?_ Was _she_ drunk?”

“I should hope not, given that she was fifteen years old and at a very properly chaperoned girls’ party. Of course ... she _was_ under the misapprehension that I was my sister, at the time.”

“And ... how did she come by this strange misapprehension?”

“Quite honestly, given that I was wearing Julia’s clothes and had been introduced to her as Julia.”

“That sounds more like _dishonestly_.”

“Well – _she_ had been invited to a party with a lot of strangers, and she was shy about it and didn’t want to go. Julia, I mean, not Sonya Vormerrick. And _I_ had been cast as Juliet in the school play, and my sister had been coaching me on how to wear girls’ clothes, and how to move – like Armsman Szabo did with you – and I wanted to see if I could pull it off. _Sonya_ had been Julia’s penfriend – I think Julia did warn me about that part, but what she did not tell me was that the correspondence had grown rather ... _intimate_ of late. It’s possible that Julia, being just-turned-fourteen and rather sheltered, _also_ did not realize that it had grown intimate. So: Sonya kissed me; I discovered that I enjoyed the experience _immensely_ , which was a surprise since people had been telling me I was obviously a homosexual since I was _six_ , and up until that point I’d had no particular reason to question it. Sonya, I should note, _also_ seemed to be quite enjoying herself at the time –”

“Good Lord, By! Did it never occur to you that Sonya wasn’t interested in _boys?_ ”

“In a word, no. Not just then. _Afterward_ , once all the dust had settled and my sister had a girlfriend and I did _not_ , I think I worked it out.”

“Served you right.”

“I was consolable. That’s another way of saying it wasn’t too hard to get the cassock off of Friar Laurence.”

Dono considered all of the possible implications of this tale. (There would be implications: Byerly was very good at steering conversations in whatever direction he chose, and his random amusing stories often weren’t random at all. Unfortunately, this one seemed to lend itself to messages that ranged from _don’t try to form a lasting romance if you’re horny, pubescent, and in drag_ to _don’t let the world tell you who you are_ , and it was anyone’s guess which of those By was actually going for.) It occurred to Dono that he didn’t exactly have any data about whether _Olivia_ was interested in boys or girls or both. Maybe that didn’t matter, since Olivia was clearly interested in _him_. Except – what _was_ he, anyway? He’d been very careful ever since his surgery to think of himself as a _he_ , and of Donna as someone else, but that was partly out of political necessity, and partly because ... he really couldn’t _afford_ to have doubts on the point, not if he was going to live in this body for the rest of his life.

“There is ... no hope that anyone in our family will ever have a normal love life, is there?” he said at last.

“‘Fraid not. But the abnormal kind is _so_ much more fun, don’t you think?”

Dono was about to protest that the abnormal kind didn’t lead to _marriage_ ... except it already had, three times. Maybe there had almost been a fourth, if Ivan had actually been serious. Did it lead to _lasting_ marriage? Maybe that was thinking too far ahead: yet another Miles Mistake.

“I’m trying to do things at least a little bit normally, this time. Or anyway, you know, _conventionally_.”

Byerly shook his head. “I don’t think you’re made for _conventional_ any more than I am. Don’t ... hurt yourself trying to twist into the wrong shape. That’s all.”

“It’ll be all right,” said Dono, suddenly very sure that it would be. “You _have_ noticed who her sisters are dating, right? A terrorist’s son, a mad scientist, and _Miles Vorkosigan’s even weirder clone_. I think the whole family might have a gratifying taste for _abnormal_.”

* * *

It was, of course, inevitable that Olivia and Byerly would have to be introduced. For one thing, By wasn’t going to give Dono any peace until they were; and for another, they were bound to bump into each other if they both kept ducking in and out of Vorrutyer House. So there wasn’t much for it except to hope that By would be on his more-or-less good behavior when it happened, and that Olivia would turn out to be one of the people who _got_ him.

He wondered _why_ he felt oddly protective about his cousin, given that By was capable of holding his own in any social situation known to humanity, and if he failed to hit it off with Olivia it would almost certainly be his own fault. And then he remembered why, because Olivia, who had taken all the dead Vorrutyers in _stride_ , seemed less certain about the prospect of coffee with one of the more likeable living ones. “Um. I’ve heard some things about him...”

“A lot of people say a _lot_ of things about By. Many of which are true, some of which are partly true, and some of which are almost certainly false, but I’m pretty sure he _encourages_ them and maybe even makes them up himself, so he won’t mind if you believe them. Which category of things have you heard, I wonder?”

“Basically ... _don’t be alone with him_.”

“Ah,” said Dono, outwardly detached and inwardly _furious_ , though not with Olivia. Maybe with society gossip in general, or maybe with one dead-and-gone Vorrutyer in particular. “I’ve got relatives you _don’t_ want to be alone with. Richars is one of them. Byerly isn’t. He just – has the bad luck to resemble a mercifully deceased uncle of ours, who apparently put the _vice_ in vice-admiral. _Not_ the fun kind of vice, by all accounts.”

“I see,” said Olivia, chewing on her lower lip. Whatever she was thinking, it was a necessary moment of truth; they were going to have to face up to the fact that he had some relatives who were downright sociopathic, and at least one of them wasn’t dead yet.

“Will you trust me when I say that I _know_ that whatever you’ve heard is a lie?” 

“Yes,” said Olivia. It was, Dono thought, the sort of trust that one woman gave another, and maybe _this_ wasn’t quite the way things were ever supposed to feel between a man and his girlfriend, but ... this was all right _too_.

* * *

Things weren’t going too badly, Dono thought. Byerly had greeted Olivia with a less-parodic-than-usual version of the high-Vor half-bow, and Olivia ... hadn’t been more shy than she _normally_ was around strangers. Granted, that wasn’t necessarily saying a _lot_. Dono steered the conversation around to the Council of Counts vote, because it was something By was capable of being vaguely serious about.

“Richars,” said By, “is pretty sure that he won over Count Vortaine when he called on him yesterday. Of course, he _also_ appears to be under the impression that he has the Vorkosigan district vote sewn up, so I think we can take it as read that his perceptions are not necessarily _accurate_.”

“Richars,” said Dono, “seems to be extraordinarily good at shooting himself in the foot without _knowing_ he’s doing it, which puts me in half a mind to be _hopeful_ about Vortaine.”

“Indeed. I’ve been ... encouraging him to call in person on as many of the sitting Counts as possible. And to do so often. And to stay for a long time.”

“Ooh, yes. Please do. While I’m thinking of it, I was just having an interesting conversation with my old friend Countess Vormuir –”

“Vormuir ... isn’t her husband the one with the pedophilia farm?”

Dono glared at him. So much for the forlorn hope that By might decide to say only _socially acceptable_ things in front of Olivia. “I don’t think it’s a _pedophilia farm_ ,” he said firmly. “There’s _no_ evidence that the children are being groomed for abuse. It’s just, as far as anyone can tell, a scheme to increase the population and profitability of the District.”

“So,” Olivia said, in tones of perfect innocence, “it’s more of a grow-your-own-brothel kit? Just add milk and wait eighteen years?”

Dono choked on his coffee, recovered, glanced up at By, who was all-too-clearly mouthing the words _second dibs_ , and then choked again.

“ _Actually_ ,” Dono said when he could talk again, “Helga Vormuir left me with the impression that this sudden penchant for producing dozens of children was a form of _overcompensation_. For lost virility.”

“So in other words ... Count Vormuir is experiencing _night malfunctoon risk?_ ” asked By with a wicked smirk, and then, when Dono kicked him under the table, “What? You shouldn’t leave your things lying around the library if you want to conceal them from people who used to play _hide-and-seek_ there.”

Well, at least that answered the question about whether men were allowed to find that sort of thing amusing.

“ _Oh!_ ” said Olivia. “Do you think Countess Vormuir might be willing to slip him some of that Betan ... stuff? Maybe on the _morning_ of the Council of Counts vote, so that he’ll be too distracted with the, um ... sudden _vulcanization_ of his intimate life?”

Byerly was looking at her with an expression that was astonishingly close to _impressed_. “I think,” he murmured, “that you’re going to fit right in with us.”

* * *

Olivia and Dono stood on the pavement, looking up at the fortress that was Vorrutyer House.

“I wonder,” said Dono, “if there’s a way to add a balcony, or a terrace, or something, without making the effect totally _incongruous_.”

“Probably not. It would be – nice to have one, though. Don’t you think? Somewhere to get some sunshine.”

“Yes. This house _needs_ sunshine. Quite badly.”

“Does it matter if it’s incongruous?”

“Maybe not ... How about if it’s flat-out _absurd_ , would that matter?”

“Does it matter to _you?_ I mean – it’s your house. You’re the one who has to live with it, and – who cares what anyone else thinks is absurd?”

“I’d like _you_ to be able to live with it.” There they were: not quite a proposal – it was too soon for that – but surely, a declaration of intent. Who knew you could do that _while_ you were discussing architecture?

“Oh,” said Olivia. “Well, in that case – bring on _incongruous_ , _absurd_ , and everything else you can think of. Pink mermaid tiles in the bathroom?”

“And gargoyles. _Lots_ of gargoyles.”

“I like gargoyles,” said Olivia, and kissed him. A tiny part of him wanted to protest: _not out here, it’ll be all over town by tomorrow, and I don’t want Richars making you a target_. Too late. And in any case, Vorrutyers were never _cowards_.

He brushed a strand of hair away from Olivia’s ear and whispered, “Welcome to Wonderland.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, all of those Vorrutyers really are related THAT closely. The relevant canon facts are 1) Byerly is the paternal grandson of a prior Count (CVA), which means that he and Richars and Donna/Dono all have to be first cousins; 2) Aral Vorkosigan's first wife was Byerly's paternal aunt (ACC), which would make her aunt to the others as well; and 3) Dono Vorrutyer the architect was Ges Vorrutyer's uncle ( _Mirror Dance_ ), making him great-uncle to the current generation. It must make for some awkward family reunions, although not, I guess, NEARLY as awkward as they would be if everyone were still alive!


End file.
